BOUGIE APOCALYPSE
A daily 1950s pulp-style serial
Chapter 6: Morning After
The world didn’t end quietly
We shoot the Walkers… then we go back to the beans.
We pushed deeper into the swamp for another two days, slow going with a 4Runner and Tom’s F150.
By the second night we found a decent piece of higher ground — not much, just a small hammock ringed by water and thick cypress. Room for the trucks, a fire, cooking area, and pitching tarps to sleep under. It would do for now.
We backed the trucks in tight. After we got a perimeter set with the trucks and the stand of trees, we could all take a breather tonight. I hoped.
The three strangers — Tom, his daughter Sarah, and the kid they called Mikey — stuck close but not too close. They helped drag fallen branches for a fire line and never argued when we told them where to sleep. Small mercies.
Raych stayed up with me for a bit during the first watch. The percolator was already working its magic again, the familiar glug-glug cutting through the frog noise and occasional gator splash.
She handed me a cup, steam rising in the moonlight. “You really think we can make something here, Jack?”
I took a slow sip, letting the bitterness ground me. “Not yet. But we’ve got coffee, plenty of beans, and three extra sets of eyes. That’s more than we had two days ago.”
Raych glanced toward the back of the 4Runner. “What about weapons and ammo with more of us?”
“I brought extra shotguns, rifles, the Glocks and Sigs.” I said “And I’ve got a lot of ammo, but most of it’s FMJ range stuff. We’re gonna burn up the duty ammo fast if more zombies show up.”
The percolator bubbled away. A couple flies buzzed about, a frog croaking not far away.
I looked around at the four people on my team. “Alright folks, tonight Raych and I will split watches. In the next days we’ll figure out your skills, do some weapons training, and get Tom and Sarah on to watch standing, too.”
Mikey piped up suddenly, “I’m a big kid, I’m going to stand watch, too.”
Raych smiled as I said, “We’ll find out soon enough.”
The percolator kept bubbling.
The night kept watching.
And for the first time since The Cough broke the world, I had the faint, dangerous feeling that we might actually be building something again.
Even if it started with bad coffee, half-decent ham and beans, and strangers we still didn’t quite trust.
Bougie Apocalypse
A daily pulp-style serial about heirloom beans, carbon steel skull-crackers, and refusing to let the apocalypse turn us into savages.
#BougieApocalypse #TheCough #MorningAfter #StayHuman #BeansAndCoffee
Jack Harlan’s adventures continue right here for now, but the official home for the whole Bougie Apocalypse series is moving.
Come find us at JackHarlanStories.com and BougieApocalypse.com — same beans, same bullets, same stubborn civilization.